Saturday, February 11, 2017

Treats and Monsters

  Yummy snacks and fun monsters? Sounds like a fun Saturday to me!  Isn't the bear just the cutest?

   So you might be wondering if this is a bag of finished things I needed to have remembered to take with me to donate.  You might then wonder that if that were true, why was there no mention of them on the blog?  Well, they are very old things that never got finished for one reason or another.  The one on top I started in college, then realized I didn't really like how the yarn felt or how it looked on me.  Since I didn't know about charity knitting at that point, I was stuck.  Now I can finish it and donate it, I'm sure someone will love it.
  The grey thing under it, that you can't see, was started back when I worked at InkStop. I was trying to half follow a pattern I saw on TV and half make one up. I wasn't sure how to finish the top then, but I think I do now.  It was the one I went looking for that started this.
  The dark blue thing in the larger bag was the beginning of a draped neck sweater.  The only problem is that I'm pretty sure I don't have enough yarn.  Since I am pretty far along, I think I will make it into a vest.
  This will be nice since it means that I will be getting more things out of the house.  I need to remember that even though I start a project and use yarn, it still doesn't count as using it until I am done and it is headed off to its new home.

Thursday, February 9, 2017

So Many Pretty Things!

  I told you that when it was going to rain finished things, it was going to pour.  Or should I say, snow?  The weather has been crazy.  Yesterday it was in the 70s and today it is snowing.  How does that make any sense?

  This is the scarf I managed to finish first.  I didn't start it first, but since I made it a bit thinner than the green and brown one, it was as long as it needed to be.  I mean, I wouldn't have minded a bit more length, but since it is a kid's scarf, I think it works.
  The pattern is super easy, and I can't take credit for it.  One time when Barbara was teaching a Crochet 101 class she made a little swatch when she wondered what would happen if you didn't skip the first stitch when counting your turning chain as the first double-crochet.  This is what happens, and since you don't go into the loop at all you don't increase or anything.

  This is the one I started before the blue scarf but didn't finish until after the yellow and brown hat.  The green was way too short.  I worked on this one during my trip out to California.  I like how the pattern looks when you do a row of single crochet, a row of double crochet, and then a row of treble(triple?) crochet.  I didn't know how many rows I was going to get out of the brown since it was left-over from that hat and so I didn't want to risk it landed on some odd row.  At first I was going to have the ends be just single crochet, but that was too tight looking.  Extended single crochet to the rescue!

  This bad boy was last mentioned on July 28th!  Finally done!  It would annoy me that two of the yarns behave so much differently than the other two, so it is a good thing that it isn't for me.  However, I do think it does look awesome.  I think Tank approves too.

  Remember this from a million years ago?  Okay, not really that long, but I did start it in December of 2015.  I just kept putting off buying buttons for it.  Then I heard that there was a 50% off sale on buttons and knew it was time for it to get those finishing touches.

  This is the hat mentioned above.  I was hoping to make it look like a cupcake, but since I only had limited yellow yarn, I could only do so much.  The color of the yarn is looking washed out in the picture, but I think it is a cute little mushroom/cupcake hat.  I did 2x2 knitted ribbing for the base and crochet for the top.  When I joined them I just crocheted the live knit stitches to the row as I was going along.

  This is another one that is a trip down memory lane.  It has been finished forever, but I don't think I ever posted about it.  I didn't totally follow the pattern since I thought that would take it a bit tall for my taste, but I do love this yarn and the colors together.  It was a fun knit and I think I will be making at least one more Slippy Cowl.

  I have scrolled back through old posts and I'm pretty sure I never even mentioned this one!  There was a request for boy's hats and scarves.  I couldn't find a pattern I liked so I kind of was winging it.  I also wanted to test something because I have a shrug pattern brewing in my mind that I want to try out.  I wanted to see if I used garter instead of reverse stockinette if I could get the same look as ribbing, but without it pulling in.  Turns out it looks different, but it looks good on this hat.

   I feel like I'm not telling anyone on here anything!  I went on a mini-vacation, made a hat, and told you about none of it.  I vaguely mentioned that it was going to happen and that I was back, but then nothing else.  I started this hat with a pattern in mind, but I didn't know that I was going to match the decor of the cabin.

   Here it is all finished.  I had planned on doing regular ribbing for the band and then brioche ribbing for the body of the hat.  Well, I was really liking how the yarn was pooling and couldn't stop regular ribbing.  I knew the pattern would get a bit funky at the top, but that's how it goes.

   The good news is that I had enough yarn to make a second hat!  This time I got to follow the pattern I had wanted to with the first one.  I can't get over how soft and springy brioche is!  I love it.  I even decreased in brioche at the top!  (Don't worry if that seems daunting to you, I had to look it up 3 times before I got it.)

  Now don't think I am just slacking off since I have all of this done.  I am well into a crochet shawl I started yesterday during my Crochet 101 class.  The mother joked that if I finished it before the class was over that she could take it home and tell her husband that I was a super fantastic teacher.
   I, of course, don't have any good pictures of it, and since it is snowing out I won't be able to get any right now.  I can post a bunch of pictures I took while out in nature when we were at the cabin before I got make some Pure Leaf tea that I got from Influenster.